Aug. 2004:

For most of this summer, I have been leaving my hair in two ponytails because my hair has gotten too thick to pull into one ponytail.   I'll wash my hair in those same ponytails and keep them secured with my pantyhose hairbands.  I have been using Suave's Milk & Honey conditioner for my conditioner washes during the week. Lately, I've been leaving some of it in my hair as a leave-in.  Coats my hair well and makes it smell great all day.  The only drawback though is that it thickens the hair.  I have to rinse the next day or so.

I'm still eating healthy, mostly cooking at home. My usual meals:

• Ramen cooked with frozen veggies and sardines (no more mackerel for me, contains high levels of mercury)
• Frozen Tina burritos occasionally for lunch
• Home made salads with the fixin's. I'm using this Bacos Bacon-type seasoning mix to top over my salads and I use Newman salad dressings; the Ranch is reeaally good!
• Avocados (yum!). I eat them at home or take them on the go. All I need is one plastic spoon and I'm set. I use the spoon to carve an opening on one side of the avacado, use my fingers to pinch/peel that piece off, and that's it, I scoop out the goods from that opening and eat it just like that.
• Boost protein shakes. VONS made a boo boo some months ago and accidentally labeled the Boost 6-pks as "$1.66", showing a savings of over $5, lol. After about 4 months I'm finally getting down to the last cans. I drink these for breakfast when I'm on the go. They usually do a pretty good job of filling me up.
• Hard-boiled egs. I've recently added this to my regimen after hearing from a long hair'd natural that she eats maybe 3 hard boiled eggs per day. In one year, her hair grew from her ears to almost bra strap. That's gonna be me, fo sho.

I'm still exercising as well, more intense than before. I've been gaining so much of my beautiful shape back. The more I work out, the more beautiful I feel, and the more it shows in my body. My legs are my focus as of now.

I've been doing a lot of revisiting of my old products stash and finding new uses for them. I'm also trying to put together a long-term product's regimen for myself as to what products I should use, for what, when, and how often it should be used.

Pre Shampoo Treat/Suave Shampoo/Lustrasilk Deep Conditioner/Suave Conditioner/AVEDA Leave-In/Oil & Serum:
I rubbed Alma oil into my hair and wrapped it with seran wrap and kept covered for hours. Went jogging, came back to wash it out with my new Suave Humectant Shampoo. I loved the way the shampoo felt. It was very thick almost like a conditioner and it smelled like their Coconut conditioner. I felt it did a good job of washing my hair and not stripping it. I washed each of my 4 sections, rinsed, and rubbed in my Lustrasilk Aloe Vera deep conditioner. It felt very silky going in. I left this in for a few hours. I rinsed it out and my hair was still feeling pretty silky! Problems start when I want to comb my hair into its usual two ponytails. I started combing my hair from end to top while dipping my hair in and out of the water (too much running water will wash the nice slip that was in my hair). I added in Suave Awapuhi conditioner. I was having a hard time combing my hair and was taking longer than usual. My hair was getting fluffy (something that conditioner is supposed to counteract) and I was not liking this! Finally I somehow discovered that I had been combing the WRONG WAY. I was holding my hair at my head and was trying to pluck out and comb my hair at the ends. When I reversed this--holding my ends and gliding my comb right above my hand and combing down (and sliding my hand down until the comb reached my ends) it was incredibly easy to detangle my hair! I can't believe I had never realized this before, but I'm glad I did. My poor ends have been suffering (once again). When done, my hair felt too fluffy, not slicked down like how it normally feels. The hair feels very cottony instead. I decided I want to try out bangs; I pulled out a piece of hair from the front and rolled onto a roller. When I did this, I noticed how shiny my hair really is :) So even though it looked dull and fluffy out of the shower, when pulled taughtly it has shine. I rubbed in my new AVEDA Elixir Leave-in and it felt "okay", nothing grand. Rubbed in a mix of Coconut oil and Neutrogena Triple Moisture Serum ontop of that. Because I read in "In-Style" mag. that brushing over wet hair causes hair to split (!), I smoothed my hair with just my hands (for the first time) and resecured my ponytails, twisted the ends, tucked under hairbands, and put on my scarf.